Spiritual Growth: Conclusion

Welcome to the Lone Star Church podcast.

Pastors CF and Nicole Rady are here to share the Word of God with you each week, helping you grasp the fullness of God's plan for your life.

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So we need to grow up, and so we started in Ephesians, chapter 4, verse 11.

Ephesians 4:11

And this is Paul writing, and we're going to close this up today so we can move on to some other subjects.

And Paul says and he himself talking about, jesus gave some gifts.

Right, jesus left gifts when he left this earth, gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers.

So we see what we call the five ministry gifts that Jesus gave Apostle, which is a sent one prophet, evangelist, pastor and teacher.

Those five gifts, right, those are what we consider those five ministry gifts that people set in office of.

And so Jesus gave those when he left.

So here's the interesting thing Jesus was all of those things when he was on the earth.

Jesus was an apostle, he was a prophet, he was an evangelist, he was a pastor and a teacher.

And so Jesus was all those gifts.

And when he left he didn't just say, well, good luck, all those gifts are leaving.

He said, no, I'm going to give those gifts back to the church.

So you see it in verse 12, why those gifts are given First was for the equipping of the saints for the work of the ministry.

So how many of you know there is work to do in ministry and the work of the ministry isn't just standing behind a pulpit, right, it's preparing food, it's opening a door, it's working with children, it's ministering to the youth, it's helping park cars, it's visiting people, it's ministering right.

The part of being a pastor of ministry, the part that I do on Sunday mornings or other times when I'm behind this pulpit, is not the largest percentage of ministry.

So there's work to ministry.

How many know, there is a lost and dying world around us that needs to hear about Jesus.

In fact, I think I did the math one time.

I'd looked at some numbers.

I'm sure it's changed, but where we reach in a couple of counties, in a few counties in Missouri and into southern Iowa, there are about 7,000 unchurched people in the area we reach to.

I don't know that's a lot of people.

Now, some of those unchurched people may be born again and go into heaven, but I would guess a large majority of those people are not saved and they're going to hell should they leave this earth.

And so guess what?

If we want to reach 7,000 people, it's going to take more than just me, more than just me and Nicole, more than just a few of us.

It's going to take all of us working together for the work of the ministry.

But to do that work you have to be equipped.

If you go to join the army, you don't sign up and they just give you an M16 and a helmet and say go get them.

They equip you but then they train you to do that work.

And so for the equipping of the saints the saints are born-again people for the work of the ministry.

I think it's interesting we see that, the equipping of the saints for the work of the ministry.

Some people are like look, I just came to church.

I didn't come to work.

I know we're all called to do things and I love it.

I had someone after first service come and something on their heart and they said hey, I'd like you and Nicole to pray about how you can help me.

I see some ministry that I can do.

I want you all to help me to see how I can do this.

I'm like man, we'll pray about it, we'll talk with you, we'll see what we can do because there is work to be done, amen.

Someone ever invites you over and you think you're just going over for lunch and then there's a U-Haul truck out in front.

I thought I was coming for a barbecue.

No, we're moving.

Right, get at it, we're moving.

We had a fairly large leather couch that was in our living room, and this is our old house, and so how many of you ever lived in an older house?

In older houses the doors are narrow and everything's narrow.

And so this couch was in our living room and we were getting new couches and we were going to put this upstairs in Bo's bedroom, and so we called Truman.

We said hey, truman, just come over, we're having some sandwiches.

No, he knew what was going on, and so he gets there.

And so our stairway was not open, it was a wall but a door.

And then it went 90 degrees up narrow, and so we're trying to get it and we're turning, we're twisting, we're doing everything.

Truman's like you're going to have to tell your wife this couch is not going upstairs.

I said I'll go see what I can do.

So I went to tell her and she came back.

She goes, guys.

I prayed about it and God told me that couch will go up those stairs.

So I come back and said she said God said it's going to go upstairs, couch will go up those stairs.

So I come back and say she said God said it's going to go upstairs.

I'm going to tell you right now we tried a hundred ways to get that up.

Only one way worked.

I mean, we twisted, turned angles, everything you first, me first.

There's one way that thing went up, amen.

And so you start thinking there's got to be some things that we realize there's work to be done, there's people that need to do it.

I believe Truman was anointed of God to help us get that up.

And you know what, when we moved out of that house, we called up to help us get that couch back down.

We said, truman, you remember how that went up?

Because it's got to come down the same way.

There's work to be done, but it takes more than just one person.

It takes everyone working together.

Why?

Because people are dying and going to hell.

People are going to hell every day.

There's work to be done, so we need to be trained, we need to be equipped to do that work.

Look at what else you need.

Why do you need a pastor?

You need equipped, you need trained.

Look at what else you need.

Why do you need a pastor?

You need equipped, you need trained, but you need built up.

You need someone that on a Sunday isn't going to come and just hammer you and say look at you, all bunch of sinners, y'all can't do anything right.

You're just a horrible group of people.

Aren't you glad God is full of mercy and grace, because y'all be going to hell?

Man, you need someone to encourage you.

You should leave church encouraged.

Sometimes we need to hear about things we're doing wrong and we need to change some things, but you need to be built up.

Why?

Because when you go out to work on Monday morning, you know what the world's doing Tearing you down.

The world wants to tear you down.

We, as Christians, should be building each other up.

Amen, edifying or building up the body of Christ.

The next verse says till we all come to unity, I don't know.

God wants us unified.

God wants you unified with your spouse.

God wants us unified, do you know?

Unity doesn't mean you always agree.

You can be in unity.

It amazes me this nation, how divided this nation has become.

I saw a poll the other day.

It was done between political parties and they asked people how many of you are proud to be an American and one political party answered almost identically, percentage-wise, to where they did when someone else was president.

Like what was it 11 years ago?

12 years ago, one political party overwhelmingly said we're proud to be Americans.

And one political party answered it was so much lower today than it was back then.

Do you see the division?

Here's the thing whether you agreed on who got elected or not, we can still be unified, we can still be Americans, we can still come together.

We can agree to disagree.

How many of you can disagree without being disagreeable?

You don't have to protest everything.

You don't have to complain about everything.

You don't have to scream and yell about everything.

Right, nicole and I may disagree and we do at times on things that go on within our home, on things that go on, and so right, if she wants to pay the room and I don't like the color, she doesn't come home and I'm like out in front with the picket signs Hate that paint.

I'm not on Facebook, I'm not complaining about it, I'm just like eh, right, it's okay.

You don't have to agree 100% to be in unity.

In unity, I mean, we're all going to get to heaven.

I don't care what church background you came from, I don't care what denomination, what church background you came from.

If you believe in jesus, your savior, and you get born again, we're all going to get to heaven.

And there's going to be some of our doctrine that we're going to be like, yeah, it's a little off on that, not where we were, like cult leaders and leading people, but it's like, oh, I didn't quite say it.

You ever say things and you're like I didn't quite say that the way I wanted to say it.

Right, there's not going to be no one group's going to get to heaven and be like see, we were right, you all were wrong.

Everyone's going to have some things that we can learn and realize.

Hey, but what if all the churches that believe in Jesus as Lord and Savior, that he's the way, the truth and the life, that no one comes to the Father except through him?

What if all of us that agree on that major point that Jesus was the only begotten Son of God, that he was the Word-made man, that he came, he was born of a virgin, that he lived a perfect, sinless life on this earth, that he died a sacrificial death on the cross, that we're redeemed from the curse of law through his death, burial and resurrection?

That he's the only way to heaven, that he's the only way you get born again, that you must be born again.

What if we believed in that one huge, major part?

Right, we took all the churches and all the little towns around.

We said, look, we all agree on this, don't we?

And here's the thing Maybe there are some churches that don't, but all the ones that do.

We said, hey, we agree on this.

Let's go reach people for Jesus, and who cares whether they're this or this or this or that, or they believe, let's just get this 99% of the stuff that's the most important, agree on it and go reach people for Jesus.

What do you think would happen in Northwest Missouri and Southern Iowa?

Within a year, there wouldn't be 7,000 people in that area that are unchurched.

But no, we don't.

We want to argue, we want to complain, we want to get offended, we want to be like oh, you guys got pews, we have chairs.

Oh, you lift your hands.

We don't lift your hands.

Oh, you pray, you baptize in the name of Jesus.

We baptize in the name of the Father, son, holy Spirit.

Oh, you do it this way, we do it that way.

No, so we all come right.

That's why we need teaching.

That's why we need the Bible, till we all come to the unity of the faith and knowledge of the Son of God To a perfect man.

Right, jesus was the perfect man.

He's what we attain to, to the measure there in verse 13 of the stature, the fullness of Christ.

Ephesians 4.14,.

Look at this that we should no longer be children.

You know who disagrees about everything Kids.

My mom and dad had a red Ford LTD station wagon with wood paneling on the side and they would pack us kids in that station wagon.

And as soon as we left town, you know what starts happening Fighting, bickering.

He touched me, he did this, she did this, she took my seat.

Am I telling the truth?

Anyone have more than one child?

Stick them together.

What are they going to do?

They're going to fight, they're going to argue, they're going to bicker.

That's why he says look, grow up.

He said quit being children.

And my dad?

He could drive in one hand, swat with the other, actually, most of the time.

He just left it up to my mom, connie, take care of those kids.

No longer be children, tossed to and fro, carried with every wind of doctrine by the trickery of men, cunning, craftiness, of deceitful plotting.

But verse 15 of Ephesians 4, speaking the truth in love, may grow up.

Everybody say grow up, grow up in all things into him.

We're growing up into Christ, who is the head.

Okay, so we realize when you get born again, jesus, remember in John chapter three most of us know John 3, 16, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believeth in him shall not perish but have everlasting life.

So that is that scripture that we use as that foundational scripture that Jesus writes the way, the truth and the life.

But earlier in John chapter 3, jesus is teaching a man named Nicodemus who was a leader in the Jewish church.

John 3 · chapter mention

And Nicodemus asked Jesus this question.

He said how do you get to heaven?

I know that's a pretty important question to ask.

I know that's a question lots of people.

Have you ever had that question before in your life?

All of a sudden you're like man, I want to go to heaven.

Once you hear about heaven and you know there's a hell, a heaven to gain, a hell to shun you're like anyone in their right mind if it's like here's the only two places you go when you die, no one's going to be like I choose hell.

You mean eternal damnation, burning, weeping, gnashing of teeth.

Yeah, sounds good.

No one right.

Everyone's like I want heaven, I want to be in heaven, I want to be where there's none of that junk.

And so Jesus right with Nicodemus.

Nicodemus said how do you get to heaven?

Jesus said these words there in John, chapter 3.

John 3 · chapter mention

He said you must.

I know must is an important word in that statement.

You must be born again.

I know Jesus didn't say you should be.

Jesus didn't say I suggest you might want to get born again.

He said you must be born again.

Then Nicodemus asked the question that you would have asked too if you didn't have the Bible.

Nicodemus said how in the world can a grown man get back into his mother's womb?

Because what was Nicodemus thinking?

I know how I was born.

How do you get born again?

Right, we all look at Nicodemus and be like what an idiot, because you've read the Bible, you've been taught.

Nicodemus didn't have any of that.

He says how do you do it?

And Jesus told him look, there are things born of the spirit, born of the flesh.

What's he saying?

There's a spiritual rebirth that's going to take place in you.

A lot of Christians then, or even a lot of not Christians yet till after Jesus' death.

But a lot of believers in God then, much like a lot of believers today, don't know that they're a spirit.

Because when Jesus said you must be born again, word nicodemus, mine, go to his flesh.

But right, according to the bible, you were created.

You are spirit, you are soul and you are body.

The real you, the eternal part of you, is a spirit.

Right, you have a soul, which is your mind, your will and your emotions.

You live in a body.

But as soon as Jesus said born again, first thing he went to was flesh.

Jesus says, no, it's a spiritual rebirth.

And so guess what, when you were born, when you were born naturally, were you born, grown up, right?

I said last week Larry didn't come out with those overalls, just ready to go.

Right, here I am, give me a job.

No, you were born a baby.

Everyone in this room you were a baby.

At one point, whether you can look at someone and believe it or not, you ever look at someone's baby picture like that.

Didn't even look like them then.

Then, the older you get, the more you look like it, because you lose your hair, you lose your teeth, you lose your eyes Like man.

They kind of look like themselves.

Now.

No, you're born naturally a baby.

When you get spiritually born, you're a baby.

But how many know you're not supposed to stay a baby naturally.

You're not supposed to stay a baby spiritually, you're supposed to grow.

Well, what do you need?

You need milk and we've talked about that.

We've read scriptures where Peter talked about in his epistles.

He said you need the sincere milk of the word right.

And then we know Jesus said man doesn't live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.

So the Bible is likened unto milk, it's likened unto bread.

And then we see in other places it's likened and we've looked at all these scriptures over the course of these teachings it's likened unto meat, milk, bread and meat.

In fact it goes a little further.

It even says strong meat in one place.

But if we just keep those three milk, bread and meat think about this you don't give a baby a T-bone.

Baby can't eat a T-bone today.

What's a baby need Needs milk.

How many know baby Christians?

You can't just throw some things at them because they're not mature enough to receive them.

There's growth there, there's basic principles.

When kids walk into kindergarten, my kindergarten teacher, pretty little single lady, miss Hunt, was my had red hair.

She's just there in all me.

For a few years All the boys had a crush on Miss Hunt, right, little five-year-old boys.

Well, miss Hunt, when I went into kindergarten she didn't say okay, everyone crisscross applesauce.

Sit down, you guys ready.

First day we're going to learn.

Okay, here's the Pythagorean theorem A squared plus B squared equals C squared.

She didn't go.

Oh, you guys didn't get this.

Let's talk about the theory of relativity.

E equals MC squared.

What's an E?

Well, that's energy equals mass times.

Velocity squared what's squared?

No, she didn't start that.

What'd she start?

She said A is for apple, b is for boy, right, and you'd spend some time learning those basic principles.

Then, once you know your letters, once you know your numbers, all of a sudden, then you start putting letters together.

Now, what do you learn?

Start putting numbers together.

Now, what you can count, you can add, you can subtract, you can multiply, you can divide, but you got to have those basic principles to get there.

Amen, and so there should be spiritual growth.

So we move from milk on to bread and then we should move into stronger things where we can eat meat.

Milk's good, it does the body good.

Bread's all right, but they bring that.

You sit down at a steakhouse.

That's the beginning.

What are you looking for?

You're looking for the steak.

And so the same way, spiritually, we're supposed to be progressing and growing.

Let's go over to Hebrews, chapter 5.

Hebrews 5 · chapter mention

Hebrews, chapter 5, and let's go ahead and start up in verse 11.

Hebrews 5 · chapter mention

Praise the Lord, you're going to grow by getting in the Word of God.

You shouldn't just be in the Word of God on a Sunday morning.

Right, right, your Bible shouldn't creak on Sunday morning because it hadn't been open all week.

Hebrews 5, verse 11,.

Hebrews 5:11

Paul says of whom we have much to say and hard to explain, since you become dull of hearing.

Right here it says you're spiritually dull and don't seem to listen.

I know what's another trait of children.

Young people Don't want to listen.

You ever tell your kids to do something you ever had to tell them five times, ten times.

Immaturity doesn't listen.

I know spiritually mature people hear from God and do something Thankful for His mercy and grace.

When we miss it.

God doesn't expect you to be perfect, but we should be growing.

Amen, verse 12 here in Hebrews 5.

Look at this in the New Living, the writer of Hebrews says you've been believers so long Because, my gosh, you've all been believers so long.

Look, he says.

Says you should be teaching other people.

What's that?

Tell you that there's supposed to be progression in your spiritual wall.

That right, all of a sudden you came in, you're, you got born again.

You needed teaching.

There should be a time when you're now a teacher.

He says you need someone to teach you the basic things about God's word.

You're like babies who need milk and cannot eat solid food.

All of these we call these epistles.

Hebrews is one of the epistles written to the Jewish believers.

Think about this.

Your church gets a letter.

You're like hey, everybody, we got a letter from the leaders there in Jerusalem.

Boy, I bet you it's good.

I bet you they're so proud of how well we're doing.

Let's read this letter.

Uh-huh, jesus is Michal's deck, the chief priest.

Right, that's right above this.

Uh, right, everyone's like go ahead, pastor, keep reading.

He basically said we're a bunch of babies and we need bottles and milk and we should be teaching other people, but we're babies and he's not happy with us.

Anyone would have enjoyed that letter.

I mean, sometimes we need it, though, verse 13.

For someone who lives on milk, is still an infant and doesn't know how to do what is right but solid food verse 14.

For those who are mature, who through training isn't that interesting, you need trained.

How many children need trained?

Children need trained.

If you leave children to themselves, they're brats, right, they'll just do whatever, eat whatever, stay up till whenever, sleep till whenever.

Do you think there's many kids that just get up and are like, uh, hello, mother and father, are there any chores you'd like me to accomplish before I go about my day?

No, you get kids like that.

You know what's happened.

They've been trained, which means their backside at some point has probably been affected, which means their backside at some point has probably been affected.

My mother trained five kids.

She trained them.

My grandma trained 12 kids.

No, there's got to be some training, but you need someone.

That's why those ministry gifts are important to help train you To have skill right Pastor Nancy talks about.

You need to be skilled in how to use the word Right.

You can give anyone a sword, or give anyone a gun, or give anyone a hammer, give anyone a chainsaw, but if they're not skilled, they may get some stuff done, but it's not going to look very nice, it won't be done efficiently.

You need training, skill to know the difference between right and wrong, amen.

And so we see that here in the Word that we need to grow up.

We've seen that numerous times that there's growth that's supposed to be taking place, growth.

You should be able to measure your growth.

You should be able to look at your life and see whether you've been growing or not.

In fact, brother Hagin said it this way.

He said it's my greatest concern in my life that I know more about God and have grown this year over last year.

It's the greatest concern in my life is, I'm thinking have I grown spiritually?

Am I walking in faith better?

Am I walking in love better?

That's been one of the things we talked about.

Right, walking in love.

I know walking in love will solve a lot of relationship problems.

If you'll learn how to walk in the God kind of love, lots of situations just sort themselves out.

We're not children anymore, right?

How many children don't know how to walk in that kind of love?

Children are easily offended.

A lot of people right, we've mentioned a lot of people leave the church because they get offended.

Well, children get easily offended.

You know how easy it is to offend a baby man.

We had.

My nephew, brandon, was over and his two little ones were there and Maxon was getting ready to be two.

All right, maxon walked in.

I go hey, maxon, how are you?

He goes, okay, buddy, hey, let's do this.

No, brandon's like he's learned no.

I said oh really, oh really, I was around you and your baby, you knew no.

Pretty good, his grandma, dooley just nicknamed him no, no, she goes.

All he says is no, everything he does no, no, no, no, brandon, no, no.

Babies are easily offended.

Again, you need to be related to the baby and have a pretty tight relationship.

But walk up to any baby with a pacifier in his mouth.

Yank it out.

That baby's going to be offended.

Pull a lollipop out of a kid's mouth they're going to be offended.

Look at a kid wrong.

They're going to be offended.

Touch their toy offended.

Look at a kid wrong, they're going to be offended.

Touch their toy.

Man, my brother, my brothers.

So when I was young, I was uh, I had the I like things done certain way, and so what?

What my brothers knew was that if anyone other than our mom touched my food, I wasn't going to eat it.

So if we're having salmon patties and I know some of you may be like I don't like it, man, I loved salmon patties as a kid and if we're eating salmon patties and we'd run out Kit and Kevin knew if they want my salmon patty they'd go hey see ya, and they'd stick their finger right through the middle of that salmon patty.

I'd be like, just go ahead and take it.

You do that today.

I'm going to eat it.

I don't get that easily offended anymore, but right, it's children.

How many mature people shouldn't be easily offended?

I saw a pastor the other day.

He didn't even wave at me.

Pastor mentioned someone from the pulpit.

He didn't mention me from the pulpit.

Why did he mention Larry today?

He should be mentioning me.

I mean my gosh, I wear overalls sometimes too.

He's not even going to mention me.

You see how easily we get offended.

Someone doesn't smile at you.

They didn't even wish me happy birthday on Facebook, okay, but they wish someone else in church happy birthday.

Coming to church, you're like.

I usually sit in this pew.

Someone is in my pew.

I'm offended.

That's immaturity.

All that's immaturity.

No, grow up.

Everybody say grow up.

Right, you were not called to stay a baby Christian any more than you were born to be a baby person.

If you could see yourself spiritually, if there was some mirror that allowed you to see your spiritual growth, some of us might be surprised at what we look like in the mirror.

Am I wearing a diaper?

I think I'm wearing a diaper.

I mean it may be a pull-up, but it's at least something.

No, we're supposed to grow up, but you've got to right how many.

If you want to grow, naturally you've got to feed yourself or get fed when you're young.

But then put food.

I look at my son right, loves health and fitness and so he looks at what he puts.

He's working, and so he sent a message to us the other day.

He goes hey, can you bring me lunch?

Okay, what do you want?

He goes I want exactly 200 grams of chicken breast.

I looked at his mother.

She goes I'm not doing it, I said I'll do it.

Well, no, I felt pretty proud of myself because, man, I dumped it out.

I landed right on 200.

I said I got you exactly 200 grams of chicken.

But, right, what he puts into his body, he's careful what he puts in.

I was listening to Cole and some of the guys talking about some of the preservatives and stuff people put in their bodies, that some of it's illegal in other countries.

But, right, some of us don't think about what we put in our body and guess what it shows.

I know, if you don't think about what you're putting in your spirit, it'll show Amen.

No, you've got to feed your spirit, right, you've got to exercise spiritually.

How do I do that?

I walk by faith daily.

I don't know, just walking, right, nicole and I have had this discussion.

She's like I just want to walk.

I'm like I don't want to walk.

I said, all right, that's the sound of a woman.

I want to lift weights or run or something.

She goes.

You're never going to do any of those things.

She goes.

At least just start walking.

I guess I'll walk.

Right, having a walking is pretty good.

Walking will get you in shape.

Walking will get you in shape.

We have people in our neighborhood, walk all the time and you can tell they walk all the time.

Got to exercise spiritually, got to feed yourself, right, spiritually, amen.

And then you've got to make a decision.

I want to grow.

I'm going to grow in God's word.

I'm going to grow in love.

I'm going to grow in faith.

Right, we see, we can grow in all those areas.

How many of you can grow in every area of your life?

Jesus talked about faith.

There's times Jesus said he marveled at how little someone's faith is, or he marveled at how big their faith is.

We see, just the faith the size of a mustard seed can move mountains, but we can grow in faith, we can grow in love, amen.

And all of it is about what it's about growing.

You have everything you need to grow spiritually the five-fold ministry, gifts, the Word of God, the Holy Spirit.

You have everything you need to grow spiritually.

Thank you for tuning in to the Lone Star Church podcast.

We hope this week's message strengthened your faith in God's word.

Remember, if you live in Northwest Missouri or Southern Iowa, we invite you to join us in person on a Sunday morning.

For more information about us, visit our website at lonestarchurchorg or follow us on Facebook, instagram or YouTube.